


Mind Maze

by Burning_Nightingale



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Inception (2010)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-08-20
Packaged: 2018-02-14 01:11:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2172276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/Burning_Nightingale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Johanna, Katniss and Peeta test out a rediscovered technology which originated before the foundation of Panem - that of entering others' dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mind Maze

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rabbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabbit/gifts).



> I was looking for a semi-plausible way to mesh these, and I think I found it? I guess you guys can judge for yourselves ;) 
> 
> Happy Crossovering, recip, hope you enjoy!

“It works like this,” Johanna said, folding her arms in front of her. “Whatever secrets the mind is trying to hide, if you give them something that suggests protection, say, a security vault, the subconscious will automatically place those secrets inside of it. And then to get them out…”

“We break in,” Katniss nodded.

“Great. Except last time I checked none of us were any good at breaking into bank vaults or getting past high security locks,” Peeta pointed out.

Johanna pulled a roll of thin, flimsy plastic out from down by her feet and laid it across the table. It showed a circular maze-like structure, with something big marked in the middle. “This guy we’re trying to steal the memory from? He was a game designer. So here’s my angle; we design the dream like an arena, slap a big cornucopia in the middle of it, and he automatically recognises the cornucopia as a safe place and hides the information inside.”

They all stared down at the map. Peeta’s brow furrowed. “And if he doesn’t and there’s nothing there?”

“Then we wake up and try another method.” Johanna shrugged. “We don’t have to do it this way, if you have a better plan…”

Peeta shook his head. “You’re the one who researched this.”

“And he has torture training,” Haymitch said from behind them, where he’d been hanging back, observing. “We’re not going to get this information out of him by any normal means.”

“It worked in the past,” Katniss said, decisive. “But what if he realizes we’re trying to get intel out of him? What if they knew about this method in the Capitol? Trained him for it?”

“We aren’t at risk in the dream,” Johanna said. “If you die in the dream, in reality you just wake up.”

Silence fell for a few minutes as they all studied the map. “The maze design?” Peeta asked.

Johanna snorted. “Have to give it some Hunger Games favour, don’t we?”

“There’s only three of us and him going in. There are twenty four tributes in a Games,” Katniss pointed out.

“When we bring him into the dream his subconscious will populate the dream as seems natural to him,” Johanna assured. “We’ll have our other tributes. If he thinks he’s in the arena they may automatically attack on sight, though, so we’ll have to be careful.”

“More killing,” Peeta sighed.

“Not exactly. They’re not real, just projections of his subconscious. Illusions created to fill the dream space.”

“Are we in agreement, then?” Haymitch asked.

They all nodded.

/

The subject, one Roberé Tenarch, was brought into the room sedated. “You sure you memorized the maze completely?” Peeta asked as they set up.

“Give it a rest, worrywart,” Johanna huffed. “I’m the architect, remember? That’s my job. You just worry about tagging along.”

“So you’re what they would have called the dreamer,” Katniss said slowly. “And Tenarch is the subject.”

“They had fancy names for most of it,” Johanna shrugged. “Now get over here and plug in.”

/

Waking up was strange. On one level, Katniss knew she was in a dream. On the other, everything felt so real she could have sworn she was in reality.

Rough stone walls surrounded them, too high to see over. The roof or sky above disappeared into blackness. They were in a small passage between the high walls, with a dead end one way and another intersecting passage in the other.

She looked around at the other two. “Alright?”

“Ready.” Johanna hefted her rifle. When Katniss shot a questioning look at it, she shrugged. “Always helps to come prepared. Now, follow me.”

Johanna had memorized the route well; they were making good progress when they first heard footfalls that weren’t their own. “Hold here,” Katniss murmured. Still as statues, they pressed themselves into the wall, listening to whoever it was walking in the adjacent passage, just out of sight around the corner. “Do you think it’s him?” Katniss whispered.

“More likely a projection,” Johanna hissed. She made to move around the corner, lifting her gun, but Katniss caught her shoulder. Johanna shot her a glare. “We don’t have to worry about hurting them, Katniss. They’re not real.”

“Just because they’re not real doesn’t mean we should randomly kill them.”

“I only memorized one route to the middle,” Johanna hissed. “We can’t go round, we’ll get lost.”

“Wait for it to walk away,” Peeta whispered.

“It might already know we’re here,” Johanna murmured.

They all fell silent and listened; the footsteps had disappeared. “How would it know?” Katniss asked, slightly louder.

“Projections sense what’s abnormal or foreign within the dream,” Johanna explained, checking around the corner before motioning for them to follow her. “They’re attracted to it, and when they find it, they take it out. It’s a defence mechanism.”

“You didn’t mention this before we came in here,” Katniss hissed.

Johanna gave her a look over one shoulder. “I _said_ they might attack.”

“You didn’t say they’d be able to sniff us out like tracker dogs,” Katniss snapped back.

“Relax! They’re not that sensitive. If we’re quick, we should be in and out, no problems.”

“Exactly how many times have you done this, Johanna?” Peeta asked pointedly.

“I read a lot about it,” Johanna snapped. “Now, do you wanna stand here or do you wanna get going?”

Deeper in, the walls of the maze crowded closer together, overhanging the passages underneath. “You could’ve made it a little less creepy,” Peeta murmured.

“Arena feel,” Johanna sing-songed.

A few tense near-misses and one dead projection later, they were peeking out into the circular opening that housed the cornucopia in the middle of the maze. “He’s there,” Johanna whispered. “Waiting, gathering supplies, maybe.”

“He could get attacked there in the open,” Katniss said, frowning. “If he thinks this is real why is he standing there?”

Johanna’s eyes darted from left to right. “The projections won’t harm the subject. I mean, they _are_ the subject, technically. Maybe he noticed that.”

“Fine,” Katniss said decisively, “We get past him, kill him if we have to, and then get that information.”

Johanna shook her head. “We can’t kill him. His mind has to be populating the dream for the information to be there in the first place.”

“Distraction, then,” Peeta muttered. “Two of us distract him, fight him, whatever, and the third goes for the info.”

Johanna checked her watch. “No time for anything more elaborate.” She motioned Peeta and Katniss forward. “You catch his attention, I’ll steal his secrets. Let’s go.”

Peeta shrugged, and they ran forward toward. Roberé Tenarch reacted instantly, bringing the knife in his right hand up into a defensive stance.

Johanna trusted the other two to keep him occupied. She slunk around the other side of the items piled in front of the cornucopia. She’d gone for the traditional games approach to supplies; bags of essentials and stacks and stacks of weapons. But it wasn’t any of that she was looking for. She’d placed a small tin box inside the cornucopia, a box secured with a small latch. It wasn’t exactly a high security bank vault, but she hoped the sense of safety in the simple lock, combined with the protection of the cornucopia, might induce him to put the information in it.

She had to rifle through bags of things to find it, but- _there_ , there it was. She grabbed it up and hurriedly undid the latch. There was paper inside; success!

Hurriedly reading through the information, trying to memorize it even as she heard Peeta yell in pain outside, Johanna’s stomach sank. There _was_ information here, true, but lines of it were blacked out, hiding critical information. It seemed the subject was either trained, or hadn’t felt safe enough to put an uncensored copy in the box.

Johanna read it again and once more, just to be sure, before she dropped it and shouldered her rifle. Running outside, she took in the results of the fight between Katniss, Peeta and Tenarch.

Both physically fitter and more experienced than him, Katniss and Peeta were overpowering the older man, but the evidence of his fighting back was right there in the knife embedded in Peeta’s shoulder. “Did you get what we came for?” he yelled through gritted teeth, trying to hold Tenarch down.

“Mostly,” Johanna said, lifting the rifle. “I’m sorry about this, but since we’ve still got time on the clock, this is the best way to wake up.”

She raised the rifle and aimed at his head.

/

Awake, and with Tenarch back in his cell, Johanna wrote down what she was able to remember from the notes in the dream.

“It’s something,” Haymitch said, looking at the notes from over her shoulder. “Not everything, but it’s a start.”

“It was only a trial run,” Peeta pointed out. “I think it went well, on balance.”

“The research I was reading suggests skilled operatives used to be able to get two levels to a dream,” Johanna said with a smirk. “A dream within a dream. Some say there were even successful cases of three levels.”

Haymitch nodded and moved away. “All something to experiment with at a later date.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “All this discovering older technologies. Makes you wonder.”

“Wondering will age you,” Katniss quipped, and Peeta laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :D


End file.
